


lazarus trick

by katsidhe



Series: episode codas [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cage Trauma, Episode: s13e22 Exodus, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsidhe/pseuds/katsidhe
Summary: Sam's alive, so everything is gonna be okay.13.22 coda.





	lazarus trick

Sam stumbles into camp white-faced and caked in blood.

It's impossible, miraculous, and Dean’s lightheaded, about to go to his knees and thank everything, thank anything, thank fucking Chuck, anyone—and then a familiar smirking figure strides into view. 

Sam is pale and trembling and mortified to be alive, mute and tense with terror, eyes flicking to the dirt, _despair_ and _shame,_ and the implications slam into Dean in a gut punch of freezing nauseous _hate_. 

But Sam’s here. He's breathing. Sam's alive, so everything is gonna be okay.

 

* * *

 

Dean’s numb. His brother was dead for a day. Now Lucifer's making nice. Now Dean's fixing a bus. Now they're rescuing thirty people. Okay. 

Dean honestly does not care. Well, he does care, of course he cares, saving people, but, mostly, he's just... moving. He's furious, of course. At Lucifer, sure, but at everyone else too. Mom, too calm, too dismissive; these people, too helpless. Jack, too fucking _dumb_. 

If Jack can’t see what a mention of Lucifer’s name does to Sam, if he can’t see what the guy being in the same room or even the same universe  _does_  to Sam— 

But then, Jack’s never seen Sam when Lucifer wasn’t a threat, a pall cast over all their heads. Dean had almost forgotten what Sam was like without that crushing weight hanging over him. Actually, strike that, he  _had_  forgotten, right up until he and Sam were walking through the forest and Sam had turned and smiled at him, grinning broadly with dimples that belonged to another time, another life. 

He thinks about what he could say to Jack. He thinks about the things he and Sam never talk about. 

How Sam's face twists when Cas lays fingers against his head to heal him. How he doesn’t order steak, how he grimaces when Dean cuts his apart. How carefully Sam treated Jack, in the beginning, before they knew him better—hunching, tentative, head half-turned away, holding his breath. How Sam keeps the thermostat up, how he puts layers under layers, even in summer, even in Georgia. How Dean tries not to ever snap his fingers anymore, because of the way Sam's eyes skitter down, quarter-second flinch. How Dean lies awake and listens to Sam shuffling through files in the bunker, creaking through the cabinets for more coffee, late at night, one two three four five in the morning—surely Jack’s heard it too, seen it, that Sam doesn’t sleep. 

Maybe Jack just assumes this is Sam’s default, being sleepless and shaking and resigned. Fun quirks. Nothing to worry about. 

Thousand-yard stare, whatever, _fine_. That’s just _Sam_. 

  

* * *

 

Mom and company are home, Lucifer’s in a different dimension, and Sam’s finally relaxing his white-knuckled grip on composure. He’s breathing careful but even; he’s showered and he's down to one layer and he's holding a whiskey.

Dean doesn’t want to watch Sam’s walls zing right back up. But they gotta button this down. Jack’s sitting confused and conflicted in a corner, and like hell is Dean gonna watch this go daytime soap opera, complete with dramatic miscommunications and daddy issues. One evil fucking archangel is enough, thanks. 

So, Dean takes a drink and jumps right in. "Sam. We need to talk to Jack about his—about Lucifer.” 

Dean’s not sure what he’s expecting. Maybe for Sam to shudder, his eyes to darken with deep unnameable pain, his hold on his drink to tighten. But Sam’s expression doesn’t change. He just throws Dean a wry half-smile. "I know." 

“Are you gonna tell him?”

Sam glances at him, then looks down at his glass. He opens his mouth, closes it. 

“Look, I just figured, it was more your, uh," Dean clears his throat, “your thing to tell.” He moves his other hand vaguely, in a gesture that he guesses he means to represent a few centuries of torture. 

Sam nods. He takes a sip of whiskey and glances across the room, to where Jack’s brooding. 

Yeah, okay, right here’s the problem. Dean’s been to Hell—he gets it, and Sam knows he gets it, Dean’s no idiot nephilim kid without the barest shred of a clue—and Sam’s still never been able to talk to him about it. The most he’s done in eight goddamn years is stutter over the word “helpless” that night after Rowena and the Black Grimoire. How’s Sam gonna be able to say shit to Jack? About his fucking  _dad_ , no less, and clearly Jack’s feeling more than a shred of sympathy for the asshole (and doesn't the idea of Sam facing _that_ make Dean’s lip curl). 

Dean says, "If you don't—if you want, I can give him the cliff-notes. Not—I mean, just the Apocalypse and all.” Only the attempted wholesale slaughter of humanity. Y’know. G-rated. Lucifer-lite. 

"No. I mean, I’ll tell him," says Sam. 

Dean sets down his drink too hard and it clinks, loud. “Maybe Michael ganked him.”

Sam snorts. “He’s not dead,” he says, all facts-of-life. He polishes off his own whiskey, one quick swallow, and puts down his glass. 

Barely a sound, Dean thinks sourly. 

"I’ve got it,” says Sam. He smiles at Dean, just a brief flash, like the one he'd offered when he staggered into camp. No dimples. 

_I've got him. I’ll handle him._  

Dean’s throat is blocked and his jaw hurts from clenching. He can’t return the smile, because, no. No more.  

One way or another, Dean’s going to _end_ this _._


End file.
